Dracula (Marvel)
Dracula is the most powerful vampire in the Marvel Universe. Though not the first of his kind, he is considered lord of all Earth's vampires. Dracula is the father of Lilith and Janus and is frequently opposed by Blade the vampire hunter. Origin Vlad Tepes was a Transylvanian warlord who gained the nickname "Vlad the Impaler" from his particular love of impaling his enemies. In life, he was a highly feared yet respected warlord who stopped at nothing to attain victory. When Vlad began having dreams about winning a battle against the Turks, he decided that his force should take on the invaders, thinking that his dreams were prophetic. Vlad's forces were supposed to lose the battle, due to the deceiving dreams being the work of Varnae, who is truly the first vampire and had chosen Vlad to be his successor, but managed to drive the intruders out using his superior strategic mind and abilities. However, the victory over the Turkish was short-lived, as Vlad's troops were mercilessly slain by Apocalypse and his Riders of the Dark. Vlad was the only survivor of the attack, and he just barely managed that. The warlord Turac had seen the assault, and sent one of his men to aid the injured Vlad, believing that he could use him to lead his military to global domination. Vlad was then sent to the residential healer, Lianda, who turned out to be a vampire. In order to heal Vlad, Lianda made him one of her own. Dracula then went on to live under the lordship of Turac in one of his towns, and did not realize his vampiric abilities until Turac and his men killed Vlad's wife, Maria. Infuriated by the homicide, Vlad brutally killed Turac and his men. After he had done so, he felt he needed to escape. He dropped off his son, Vlad Tepulus who was named after him, to be raised by a group of residential gypsies and attempted to leave the town. On his way out, he was confronted by a group of Varnae's agents, and was escorted to the lair of Varnae to make a deal with their master. Varnae put Vlad through a series of tests to see if he was truly capable of being the king of the vampires. He was forced to slay Nimrod, who had posed as the ruler of earth's vampires. He did this with some ease, but was soon after confronted and destroyed by a band of priests. Varnae acknowledged the defeat, but did not give up on Vlad. Varnae resurrected Vlad with the blood of the niece of the head priest who had defeated Vlad. The king of the undead then aimed to kill the girl, but was himself killed by a grateful Dracula. Vlad then drank his blood, and became the king of the undead. This event showed Varnae that Vlad was fit enough to be the king of the vampires, so Varnae decided it was his time to go. After Varnae handmade an enchanted casket for Vlad, to protect him from the sun, he killed himself by walking into the sunlight unshielded. Thus began the reign of Count Dracula. Throughout the next few centuries, Dracula reigned supreme over many European lands. Dracula was often killed, but never stayed defeated; using his mystic and unholy abilities to revive himself upon death. Character Creation While already famous via the novel, in plays, and several movies, a character called Dracula would not make it into a comic book until 1951 in Marvel’s Suspense. After the Comics Code Authority came about he once again became scarce but reappeared with the weakening of the code in the 1970’s. He was then reimagined by Gerry Conway and Gene Colan and published in Tomb of Dracula #1, in 1972. Character Evolution At the turn of the nineteenth century, Dracula fought Jonathan Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, Mina Harker, John Seward, and Quincey Morris. This conflict is chronicled in Bram Stoker's Dracula. After his apparent death, Dracula was resurrected by accident from the Frankenstein monster. Later Dracula caught wind of Clan Akkaba, which was a large following of the god-mutant Apocalypse, the same Apocalypse who brought about his downfall as Vlad the Impaler. Using his extensive resources to find more out about the Clan, Dracula began attacking them, killing off their members rigorously. He then manipulated the now vampiric Clansmen to do his will from within the clan, turning all but a handful of the members into Dracula's undead army, who also had mutant abilities thanks to the blood of Apocalypse flowing through their veins. After many battles between the remaining Apocalypse followers, along with the vampire hunter Abraham van Helsing and Dracula's army, Apocalypse managed to impale Vlad through the heart. Apocalypse refused to take Abraham's advice, though, and did not do anything to keep Dracula permanently killed. Category:Marvel monsters Category:Vampires Category:Humaniods Category:Undead Category:Males Category:Villains Category:Comic book monsters Category:All monsters